It is alleged that the ancient Greeks had invented a computer more than 2000 years ago. In 1901, divers working off the isle of Antikythera found the remains of a clocklike mechanism 2,000 years old, for calculating the motions of stars and planets.
Wind on 2000 years and as the Financial crisis deepens in Greece and the threat of the painful extraction from the Euro, spare a thought for what this could mean to you and your fellow Technology Project Managers around the globe.
Any dismissal of the Euro will have a massive impact on financial institutions and businesses not only within Greece but also elsewhere.
I’m not talking about the destruction of the currency and the reintroduction of new notes and coins, I’m talking about financial system changes.
Since the Euro was set up on January 1st 1999, the computer systems have been adapted to run the Euro alongside the Pound, the Dollar and the Yen. Now with the possible introduction of a “new” currency, presumably named the Drachma, changes will be required.
In the past I worked on a project where we analysed the impact of the UK switching to the Euro, and made the appropriate contingency plans. These changes were not insignificant, and would have been costly to implement.
Global websites will need to change to accept the new currency. The large vendors (I’m thinking Oracle E-Business) will need to determine if they are currency-neutral or whether a new release would be required. Similarly with the Reconciliation systems.
If Greece falls we can also expect a domino effect with countries like Portugal and Spain in similar situation. Again think of the impact of having to introduce several new currencies.
I have blogged separately about the advent of the digital currency Bitcoin. If the Euro goes into meltdown we can expect to see a lot of work in this area, as pioneers look at a safer neutral transacting medium.
At this stage we cannot be certain that Greece will default and I’m not predicting Son of Y2K but I do think it would be wise to get ahead of the game and start the impact analysis now to avoid any last minute panic.
So if any of you Project Managers are thinking about retiring to go diving for lost treasures, then think again.
Update March 2015 – Since this was first penned back in 2012 a lot has happened within Greek politics, so this could be more likely now than it was back then.
Malcolm McNeill is a freelance Financial Services Project Manager as well as CEO of Fabbydoo.com. Additionally he owns car rental comparison website BestCarHire and Motor Home comparison website HolidayCampervan.
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